Revealing geography teachers’ cognitive structures on Indonesia’s strategic maritime position through a word association task
Abstract
This study examines geography teachers’ understanding of Indonesia’s strategic maritime position in order to investigate the extent to which their cognitive structures support coherent geographical reasoning using a Word Association Task (WAT). Thirty-five teachers generated spontaneous associations in response to structured prompts related to geographical settings, consequences, implications, and the spatial and ecological perspectives. The results indicate that teachers’ knowledge is predominantly oriented toward descriptive first nature geography, with strong emphasis on physical geographical conditions and commonly used maritime terms. However, the range of associations reveals limited activation of second nature concepts that represent relational spatial structures, including spatial interaction, connectivity, and economic space. Most teachers demonstrate one-sided reasoning, with limited attention to reciprocal human–environment relationships. Their responses also reveal conceptual ambiguity between the spatial and ecological perspectives, as well as frequent reliance on non-geographical policy-related terminology. Taken together, the findings indicate fragmented and insufficiently organised cognitive structures, with limited integration of spatial concepts required to interpret Indonesia’s strategic position as an interconnected economic space. These results highlight the need to strengthen spatial thinking and conceptual clarity through more explicit use of relational and organising concepts in geography teacher education.References
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